by A. J. Wynter
Oh, shit, he saw me.
He definitely saw me.
I had looked down the second I had noticed it, avoiding eye contact, and now I was really panicking. I grabbed one of the enigmatic appetizer crackers and bit into it carefully as I watched Kirk stride over to Johnathan, his eyes wide.
Now he was panicking. I don’t know what I expected, really.
I could sense the two of them watching me as I continued to nonchalantly gaze around the room. I admired the ice sculpture, I clapped for the pianist. I stared at one of the brightly-colored abstract paintings and pretended to have some deep thoughts about it. I tried to look busy.
I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I might be a little smug about the fact that he seemed to be freaking out this much. But yikes, was this awkward.
When I ran out of random stuff to look at, I gravitated towards a group of people by the drinks station and chatted with them, a bunch of accountants who were deep into a debate about last year’s Oscars.
“Marissa!” I turned around to see Sabryna again. “You’re from Buffalo, right?”
I gulped. “Yup.”
“Well you’re not going to believe this,” she said excitedly, dragging me by the arm across the room.
Oh, I could believe it.
“Our top lawyer here at Torver Corporation is also from Buffalo,” she said, and we turned the corner, and there he was.
Time did not so much stop as much as melt, blurring around us as we looked at each other. Seeing him again felt like finding an old toy in the attic and being shocked that the batteries still function, that the spark still lit up in the same old way. Years had passed, so much had changed…we had changed…but I think we both understood the unique magic of that moment, of how surprisingly familiar our connection felt without words even passing between us.
“Ahem,” Sabryna interrupted. “Marissa, this is Kirk Atkins, our top lawyer here at Torver Corporation, and Kirk, this is—”
“We’ve met, actually,” Kirk said, maintaining eye contact with me, the newly deepened yet strangely familiar baritone of his voice sending shivers down my spine.
“Really?” Sabryna asked, and I could tell that she intuitively sensed something deeper going on. She waited for us to explain.
But how on earth could what happened between us ever be explained?
“Kirk and I were friends in high school,” I said, looking back up at him. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you again too,” Kirk said, and I winced at our small talk, how burdened it was with the unsaid.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Sabryna said with a smile, pleased that she had matched the two Buffalo natives, and walked away.
Kirk and I both laughed awkwardly as soon as Sabryna left…at what, I couldn’t really say. But the fact of the matter was that we were standing here facing each other after all these years apart, with everything to say but no way to say it. And it was terrifying…and exhilarating.
I glanced down at Kirk’s muscled forearms and quickly looked away. The man was emitting raw sexual energy without even trying, and it was making it rather difficult to focus on what was already a difficult conversation.
“So, when did you move out here from Buffalo?” I asked.
Kirk put his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the wall. “Right after college, actually. I got a job offer in Seattle a couple months after graduating from Columbia, and here I am.”
“I always said you’d do great things,” I said, touching him on the arm. He flinched away and adjusted his red glasses. I tried not to be offended.
“Yeah, you did,” Kirk said, and gave me a polite smile. “You’ll like Seattle, I think.”
“I hope so.”
“Excuse me,” Kirk said. “I have to go talk to Johnathan about something.” He gave me a quick smile and made a fast exit. I felt my heart sink heavy in my chest.
“See you,” I said, but he was already walking away.
Kirk was being polite, and being nice, as Kirk always had and I’m sure always would…but he was being cold, and I sensed it. The way Kirk joked around with the people at the party was lighter, was more like him. He wanted nothing to do with me. After all these years, he still hadn’t forgiven me.
But I wouldn’t have forgiven myself either.
Chapter 4-Kirk
Usually I’m not a fan of school projects that require meeting up with people outside of class, but this time, I’m not complaining. A ten-page research report is due next week, and Marissa and I are eager to get a head start.
“We could work after school in the library,” I suggest, and Marissa shoots down my idea instantly, even when I remind her we’ll need to use some of the books. “We can look that up later,” she says while looking down at her shoes, and I have this awful, sinking feeling that she doesn’t want her friends to see us hanging out together.
“We can work at my house,” Marissa says, and scribbles her address on a piece of paper. “See you tomorrow night.”
I know people usually think of me as a nice guy, and I am. I am here to help you move into your new apartment, help your grandma cross the street, all that jazz. It’s who I am. But there is one plot twist:
I do not let things go.
Even this. Even this thing that happened back when I was a teenager. It hurt. And it was the first real hurt I’d ever had to live through, too.
I’m sure Marissa is probably different now. She probably feels bad. I still like her, and want to like her, in some strange, twisted way. But I can’t let her in again. We can be friendly, sure, we can get along at work, but I won’t make things so easy for her.
I don’t trust people twice.
I get home after the party and jump right into the Jacuzzi tub, letting the warm water of the jets soothe my muscles after a long night of standing around making chit-chat while wiping green and red sprinkles off my suit.
I leaned my head back against the edge of the tub and sighed. I still cannot believe I saw Marissa Hayes a few hours ago. And that we’d be working together at Torver Corporation for lord knows how long. It was surreal. I had pushed her to the back of my mind, after a lot of years and a lot of effort, under the assumption that I’d never see her again. But here she was.
Maybe I’m being immature by holding this grudge against her. But you know what, no. Marissa has always had everything so easy. For once, she needed to understand the work of earning someone’s trust and respect. Too damn bad.
I towel off and change into my pajamas, and go sit down in front of the television. The leather of the sofa feels cold, and it’s too quiet…almost eerily so. I start to wander around the room as The Empire Strikes Back plays in the background, the familiar lines sounding off like clockwork in my head.
How long am I going to spend nights alone in my massively empty apartment? It was starting to feel like I was the one living on Hoth. I looked out my window at the city streets below and sighed. Snow was still left melting on the street corners from the blizzard we had just had. It was different from the Buffalo snow of my youth—it wasn’t clean and quiet, but grimy and without magic. The Christmas season had an uncanny way of making me feel even more alone than I usually did. I mean, Christ, even Johnathan had managed to find a girl to tolerate him long-term…but why couldn’t I? If I showed up at Mom’s Christmas potluck without a girl this year, yet again, I was going to get a lot of grief for it.
I thought of Marissa, of the shiny red satin of her party dress lit up by the lights of the office Christmas tree. Marissa would make this apartment warm. She would color it, twirl around in circles laughing until everything was brighter. She had always had this lightening energy, bright and unpredictable and beautiful…she could—
No.
I can’t. Not again.
Chapter 5-Marissa
I’m lying on my bed in the tiniest shorts I own, my hair shiny and full from just blow-drying it, and I’m filled with smugness. Smugness because I’m loun
ging on my bed, slowly rubbing my freshly shaved legs against each other, rambling on about meiosis, and I know Kirk is looking. Trying hard not to, but he’s looking.
I’m high off the thrill of having a boy in my room—the danger and potential of it, even if it’s just Kirk. Shy, nerdy Kirk who would never dare to try anything…but I don’t care.
“Let’s go outside,” I say, and Kirk looks completely shocked. But he follows.
It’s an unseasonably warm October night with a full harvest moon, and it’s gorgeous. I take two beers from the fridge, hand one to Kirk, and lead him out to the old swing set in my yard. He stumbles behind me awkwardly.
“Should we bring the books?”
“Nah,” I say. “Let’s just talk.”
I try not to laugh as Kirk takes a sip of beer and makes a strange face. It’s his first time tasting alcohol, and I can tell. He doesn’t frequent the same parties that I do, the ones where plastic red cups crinkle in people’s hands, the ones where all the beer tastes like piss.
“Are you going to homecoming next weekend?” I ask.
“Nah,” Kirk says. “It’s not really my scene.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I say, but Kirk looks skeptical. An awkward silence follows and I’m not sure quite how to break it.
“Hold on,” I say, and run into the house. I emerge with my boom box and a plastic crate filled with CDs and cassette tapes. “We haven’t debated our music tastes yet.”
Kirk grins. “No, we most certainly have not.”
We spend almost three hours lying on the grass with the boom box and our beers, talking and listening, savoring the silences. Kirk tells me how he loves a guitar riff and I tell him how I love a lyric. The biology paper is forgotten.
Kirk, always the responsible one, reminds me how late it’s getting and starts to head out. “Thanks for having me over,” Kirk says, his words heavy with other gratitudes.
“Of course,” I say, and there’s a split second where I’m wishing with all my heart that he would kiss me, and we’re frozen, but he turns away.
“See you tomorrow,” Kirk says, and I’m left with an unbelievable and new feeling of emptiness when he leaves. My heart tightens in my chest.
I think I’m falling for him.
My first day of work nerves are slightly diminished by the fact that I got the initial awkwardness over with during the party on Saturday night, which in retrospect was a good decision. I doubted drinking three glasses of chardonnay to deal with the emotional distress of seeing your ex-boyfriend was condoned at a company as illustrious as the Torver Corporation.
I was relieved once again to see Sabryna as I walked into the office.
“Good morning,” I said, trying my best to exude confidence.
“Ready for your first day?” Sabryna asked.
“Yup.”
“Great, I’ll show you to your new office.” Sabryna smiled giddily and led me down a hallway to a room situated in the corner. “Here we are.”
I gasped as I looked around the room. I thought only Johnathan’s office was expensively furnished and high-tech, but it looked like I got to join in on the fun too. My office had a similarly exquisite looking mahogany desk, except mine was engraved with a tiny leaf design on the edges. A bouquet of freshly cut pink roses was already sitting in the corner in a crystal vase. A window looked out at the shimmering Seattle skyline, and I gasped at the view. There was even a tiny video intercom on the wall and a tea kettle sitting on the counter. When I went to look by the chair, a gift basket of expensive chocolate and wine was awaiting me.
“Is this a joke?” I exclaimed to Sabryna.
She laughed. “Nope. People aren’t kidding when they talk about how loaded Johnathan and the Torver Corporation are. We like to make sure our employees are treated like royalty here.”
I giggled. “How on earth am I ever going to get used to this?”
Sabryna shook her head. “Oh, you will. Two months into working here I could barely eat at Chipotle without wishing I had caviar to dip my tortilla chips in.”
I looked out the window and shook my head in disbelief. “This place feels too good to be true sometimes, doesn’t it?”
“Well, for now,” Sabryna said. “Johnathan expects hard work. It’s not string quartets and lobster thermidor all the time. You’re gonna put in some long hours. But you’re tough. You can handle it.”
“Thanks, Sabryna,” I said.
“No problem,” she said. “And you have a meeting in an hour in the conference room, okay?”
“Got it,” I said, sinking down into the surprisingly luxurious ergonomic office chair to take in my surroundings. I was almost suspicious at how nice the Torver Corporation was…the Buffalo girl in me sensed bribery, but I supposed this was just how people did it in the wealthy, big-city world of Seattle. I bit into a chocolate bar that was infused with saffron and cranberries. Not bad. I guess I may as well enjoy it here.
But then there was still the issue of Kirk. Was he going to be at this meeting? Was he going to act cold towards me again? Should I just give up trying to be his friend and back away? I didn’t want to though. I missed him.
I have always, always, missed him.
Chapter 6-Kirk
Marissa liking me would be insane. Girls like her barely even looked at guys like me, much less had any interest in dating us. But then why was I getting this strange impression from her…this feeling like she wanted us to be more than friends? I thought about the way she had smiled over at me while we laid down in the grass in her backyard the other night, and how happy she looked…far happier than she ever was when I saw her clustered around her friends in the hallways. I watched as she looked at me discreetly during class or touched my arm as we passed our textbooks back and forth. If it was anyone besides Marissa Hayes, I’d be convinced enough to call it flirting.
But I’m only fooling myself…right?
I’m still not sure how I feel about the holidays at the Torver Corporation. When I say Johnathan tends to go all out, I mean he goes all out. I can barely walk in a straight line without tripping over a Kinara or a Menorah or a snowman that dances every time you get near it. Usually, as a Buffalo native, the sudden influx of winter cheer was welcome, but this year, especially with the Marissa situation, I just wasn’t feeling it. There was nothing like the joy of the holidays to remind you of how much joy your life usually lacked.
Johnathan really isn’t much of a Christmas guy himself, but he is practical. He likes to get all of the cringe-worthy office bonding crap started early in December. That way, most of us can get through the month slightly drunk. It tended to make our office an interesting environment. Something odd was always going on and interrupting our work day, there was either a Christmas cracker popping open in your ear or mistletoe hanging over your head. One year there was an acapella group that broke down the door to my office, and the year after that there was a cookie baking workshop I had to attend that put me way behind on work for a case. I wasn’t really feeling any of the spontaneity after that party though…seeing Marissa again was enough surprise to last a lifetime.
I walked into work with a thermos of green tea, my favorite red and blue plaid wool scarf, and a nervous feeling in my stomach about having to see Marissa again. I’m feeling a little bit guilty about having been so cold to her at the party the other night, but the skinny, high school nerd that still lived somewhere under my newer and buffer exterior reminded me to stay vigilant.
I don’t care how long ago it was. She hurt me once, so I won’t trust her twice.
The office seems to be empty except for some muttering and laughing from down the hall, and I realize that everyone has gathered in the conference room. I open the door, and everyone is wearing Santa hats.
Great. Just great.
“Kirk!” Johnathan says, pulling out a chair for me. “We’re doing Secret Santa again this year!” I laughed as Sabryna ceremoniously stuck a Santa hat on my head. “It’s your turn to draw a name.”<
br />
I chuckled nervously as a plastic bowl with paper name slips slid across the table towards my chair. I saw Marissa in the other corner with some of the other new employees. She looked pretty in her work clothes, even first thing in the morning. Her brown hair fell in short but defined waves around her shoulders, and her bright green eyes lit up as she surveyed the room, the same enigmatic jungles that they had always seemed to me. I took a deep breath as I reached in and drew out a slip of paper, saying a silent prayer that I would choose anyone but…
Oh fuck. Fuck.
I tried to keep a poker face as I slipped the paper into my pocket. Of all people in this stupid conference room, I had to pick Marissa. Marissa Hayes! I had to buy a gift for Marissa Hayes. Yikes, there was going to be so much pressure associated with this now…I mean, even a slightly wrong gift could send the wrong message. Maybe I’ll just get her a gift card. A Starbucks gift card. Yes. Welcome to Seattle, Marissa, birthplace of Starbucks. If you’re lucky, you’ll still be alive and kicking by the time you get to the end of our extra-long, city length coffee lines. You’ll probably—
“Who’d you get?” Sabryna asked, interrupting my train of thought, and I nearly jumped out of my seat.
“Oh!” I said, biting my lip. “Well, they do call it Secret Santa for a reason.”
“True,” Sabryna said, looking at me suspiciously. “Hopefully Cassidy didn’t draw your name. Or mine. He’s notoriously cheap. Last year he got me a bag of chocolates that I’m pretty sure came from the gas station down the road.”
“Uh huh,” I said, looking over at Marissa. She was talking to some of the accountants, and I tried not to stare too hard at the way her body was draped across her chair. She had on a long sleeved black sweater dress that accentuated her curves, and a thin pair of pantyhose covered her shapely, tan legs, which ended in a sharp-heeled pair of black pumps. I wondered suddenly what she’d look like without the dress, standing in just her pantyhose and heels in my office.
